Philsaxophone
Senior Member
- Messages
- 41
- Location
- Weybridge, Surrey
My love affair with the Tenor started over 30 years ago, but was just a hobby as a business career took all my time.
During that time I played about 5 times a week for about an hour a time, just the tunes I heard and loved from old 30's ballads to some much faster 60's stuff which I heard played at my favourite venue--Bulls Head, Barnes and on the radio.
I never had any lessons and certainly never did all the scales work for the grades--in fact did virtually no scale practice really at all
My improvising has always been to embellish the melody whilst picking up the major chord changes in any song--I do this by ear rather than automatically knowing what scales etc work over certain chord progressions
I did spend two years practising improvisation with a pro Alto player but he was a Bop fan--very good but not my thing, although he did in the end think my improvising by ear was getting much better on some faster stuff
My practice is now playing about 50 various songs over Band in a Box backing tracks, with all real tracks, that I put through a small PA at home
I also attend a Blues / Jazz evening class and have played in public several times with them--not that difficult as the tunes are not hard and the standard not high.
Sight reading is OK ish although I do struggle if moving past 3 sharps and 3 flats until I learn the tune.
So to the point of this long waffle--I am now 65 this year and have loads of free time
Just how much would going through all the scales, modes etc, in other words starting again improve my playing with the material I have and like to play--I have the finger dexterity still to play fast but that's not the sort of stuff I like to listen too that much. Bop just isn't melodic enough for me although I can admire the technical skills involved
Is there anyone out there who has done this and started again by learning all the theory stuff and if so did it really improve your playing that much????
During that time I played about 5 times a week for about an hour a time, just the tunes I heard and loved from old 30's ballads to some much faster 60's stuff which I heard played at my favourite venue--Bulls Head, Barnes and on the radio.
I never had any lessons and certainly never did all the scales work for the grades--in fact did virtually no scale practice really at all
My improvising has always been to embellish the melody whilst picking up the major chord changes in any song--I do this by ear rather than automatically knowing what scales etc work over certain chord progressions
I did spend two years practising improvisation with a pro Alto player but he was a Bop fan--very good but not my thing, although he did in the end think my improvising by ear was getting much better on some faster stuff
My practice is now playing about 50 various songs over Band in a Box backing tracks, with all real tracks, that I put through a small PA at home
I also attend a Blues / Jazz evening class and have played in public several times with them--not that difficult as the tunes are not hard and the standard not high.
Sight reading is OK ish although I do struggle if moving past 3 sharps and 3 flats until I learn the tune.
So to the point of this long waffle--I am now 65 this year and have loads of free time
Just how much would going through all the scales, modes etc, in other words starting again improve my playing with the material I have and like to play--I have the finger dexterity still to play fast but that's not the sort of stuff I like to listen too that much. Bop just isn't melodic enough for me although I can admire the technical skills involved
Is there anyone out there who has done this and started again by learning all the theory stuff and if so did it really improve your playing that much????
